1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital-watermark superposing apparatus for superposing on video data a digital watermark which bears information different from the video data and a digital-watermark detecting apparatus for detecting such a digital watermark from video data on which the digital watermark has been superposed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, as optical recording media on which information data can be written, DVD-R and DVD-RAM are being put to practical use, but in putting the DVD-R and the DVD-RAM to practical use, it is necessary to devise measures for preventing illegal copying of video software and the like.
Accordingly, attention is being focused on a technology in which information expressing copywrite information or a copy guard is expressed by a noise-like image pattern called a digital watermark (hereafter referred to as the watermark) which is visually inconspicuous, and video data with this watermark superposed is transmitted or recorded on a recording medium.
However, since the watermark is merely noise with respect to the video data, if an image is displayed by using the video data in which such a watermark is embedded, deterioration in the image quality occurs.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a digital-watermark superposing apparatus and a digital-watermark detecting apparatus which make it possible to superpose a digital watermark bearing desired information on video data while suppressing deterioration in image quality when an image is being displayed.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a digital-watermark superposing apparatus for superposing on video data a digital watermark which bears information different from the video data, comprising: a DCT circuit for generating a plurality of DCT coefficients for respective frequency components by subjecting the video data to a two-dimensional DCT transform for each pixel block consisting of a predetermined number of pixels; a quantizer for quantizing a value of at least one of the DCT coefficients in accordance with a quantization rule corresponding to the information so as to obtain a quantized DCT coefficient; an inverse DCT circuit for performing a two-dimensional inverse DCT transform with respect to the DCT coefficients in which the at least one DCT coefficient thereof is replaced with the quantized DCT coefficient, so as to obtain digital-watermark superposed video data in which the digital watermark corresponding to the information has been superposed on the video data; and a selector for selecting and outputting the digital-watermark superposed video data concerning a section in which a video pattern due to the video data is not flatter than a predetermined video pattern, and for selecting and outputting the video data instead of the digital-watermark superposed video data concerning a section in which the video pattern due to the video data is flatter than the predetermined video pattern.
In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a digital-watermark detecting apparatus for detecting a digital watermark from video data on which the digital watermark bearing information has been superposed, comprising: a DCT circuit for generating a plurality of DCT coefficients for respective frequency components by subjecting the video data to a two-dimensional DCT transform for each pixel block consisting of a predetermined number of pixels; means for determining as a quantization error an absolute value of a difference between a value of at least one of the DCT coefficients and a value of a quantized DCT coefficient quantized in accordance with a quantization rule corresponding to the information; statistical processing means for statistically processing the number of times when a value of the quantization error has become a value in a neighborhood of 0; and digital-watermark determining means for determining as a result of the statistical processing whether or not the digital watermark bearing the information has been superposed on the video dada.
In accordance with a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a digital-watermark detecting apparatus for detecting a digital watermark from video data on which a digital watermark bearing first information and a digital watermark bearing second information have been superposed, comprising: a DCT circuit for generating a plurality of DCT coefficients for respective frequency components by subjecting the video data to a two-dimensional DCT transform for each pixel block consisting of a predetermined number of pixels; means for determining as a quantization error an absolute value of a difference between a value of at least one of the DCT coefficients and a value of a quantized DCT coefficient quantized in accordance with a quantization rule corresponding to the first information; statistical processing means for statistically processing the number of times when the quantization error has become less than a lower limit value of a predetermined dead band region and the number of times when the quantization error has become greater than an upper limit value of the predetermined dead band region; and digital-watermark determining means for determining as a result of the statistical processing whether or not the digital watermark has been superposed on the video data and whether the digital watermark bears the first information or the second information.